Peking duck! This has to be the silliest thing I ever cooked–the recipy it self was sooo funny..starting with you take the duck, dry it up, inflate the duck with a bicycle pump…. It took me days and it was so much trouble for a little housewife like me- but it was worth it. It didnt presented itself like a real Peking duck, but then again..I am just a housewife;) But I read somewhere to my own consolation that a Peking Duck chef works for 10 years before actually getting to cook a duck! Its an art! This is my homemade art:
Anyways..so I took the duck…dried it in front of a ventilater for a day or so..inflated it..and NO..the bycycle pump didnt work, so I just sort of blew some air in with a straw. The trick is to get the skin as crispy as u can and still have the meat as tender as can be. When you dry the surface of it..the skins starts to loosen from the skin and the reason why you force air in is to make a pocket of air between the skin and the meat. Then I basted it in some sauce and cooked it and voila..served with spring onions, hoisinsauce, and cucumber- and not to forget the mandarin pancakes to roll it all up in…mmmm….its sooo good once you had it, you will always want more! In real Peking Duck kitchens you get the meat and the skin served seperately- the skin is so crispy its unbelievable and the meat so tender and moist! My skin wasnt that succesfull so I just sliced the duck very thinly;)

I usually makes small crisy Thai springrolls, but this guy at work, Long made the most fantastic huge springrolls, with his own springroll wrappers and home made chili sauce, so I started experimenting to make them like his. I never succeeded even after quite a few attempts, so Long is still the Springroll Master, but mine didnt turn out that bad even so;)

Filling:First I prepared the filling with minced meat and other stuff ( Long says meat and cabbage and stuff..I just used meat and bamboo and onions, salt and peber and left it to cool.

Springroll wrappers:
Mix eggs, salt and peber, water, flour ( 1 eggs to 300 gr of flour approx) into a nice smooth, not too thick not too thin…and leave it for a while. Bake the pancakes on a pan – on only one side! I brushed the pan with a tiny bit of oil when needed and poured the batter on and baked them on one side till they look like they were just baked, not browned yet. The I peeled it off the pan and proceeded to the next one. I left them to cool completely off before rolling them.

I deepfried the ones we wanted to eat and put the rest in the freezer. Very easy to take them out, thraw them and deepfry them if we feel like some warm crispy springrolls!

AND now we’re at it…I want this springroll machine for my birthday! That has to be better than sex!!

This cake is a cake but with a snackie feel to it- as a Thai woman once told me when I asked her about the cakes : “Mm..this is a very old cake! It’s good to eat when watching tv! Break it into little pieces and munch on it!”

(I still wonder what the “old” about it was- presumably she meant it was an old recipe!)

Anyways this cake is a bit of an obsession with me. I saw the first ones in a small shop/ restaurant kind of place very far out in a small place called Stenløse- and I bought a bag of them with me home and was completely blown away- with the presentation and with the taste and the crunchiness and texture! I since was so lucky to get my hands on the iron to make it and have been experimenting to get them just right ever since!

Recipe:

Equal amount of Coconut milk and water
1 kg rice flour with a tiny bit of normal flour in it ( makes them harder and crunchier)
500 or more palmsugar or light brown suger ( gives a better taste)
1 egg
salt
Sesame seeds

Mix it well and leave it for some hours or even better till the next day. The consistensy has to be like when you dip a spoon in it and lift it up, the batter drips off very slowly and mostly stick on the spoon.

Cooking the cakes:

Heat oil up in a large thick buttomed pot or a large vok- heat the iron up too- and this is the essential in the baking of the cakes- the iron has to be warm enough or the cake wont come off but will stick to the iron.

When its warm enough- sprinkle sesame seeds on the batter for every cake ( or they will sink to the bottum) and dip the iron in the batter- quickly and making sure you don’t dip the top of the iron ( or the cake can’t come off) and place it in the hot oil, and just as the cake “stiffens” shake it off and turn it upside down. Take the cake out of the oil before it turns too dark and place it in a glass or bowl lined with tissue to absorb the excess oil and press them down a bit, to make the rounded shape. Leave them to cool- and store them in an airtight comtainer- but not till completely cooled off.